Behavioral Systems

The Behavioral Systems Cluster consists of the Animal Behavior Program which supports research in the area of integrative animal behavior to understand how and why individuals and groups of animals do what they do in nature. Research in this area occurs in field, laboratory and captive environments and covers a wide range of scientific fields and levels of analysis to study the development, mechanisms, adaptive value, and evolutionary history of behavior. The Cluster encourages species specific and comparative studies as well as modeling and theoretical approaches that use animal systems to discover and explore overarching principles of the biology of behavior and to advance a fully integrated understanding of the behavioral phenotype from genes to ecosystems.

The Cluster supports these goals through the core program in Animal Behavior and the Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant program (DDIG).